Flight is exciting - terrific, really - because in addition to the sophisticated storytelling techniques by which it keeps us hooked, it doesn't drag audience sympathies around by the nose, telling us what to think or how to judge the reckless, charismatic protagonist played by Denzel Washington.

An indelible portrait of an American family at its most blithely macabre.

It blends cinematic Americana with something grubbier and more interesting than Americana, and it does not look, act or behave like the usual perception of a Spielberg epic. It is smaller and quieter than that.

Small, sure and stunningly acted, this is a picture of exacting control.

See it, and I dare you not to care about what happens to these kids, these Yankees of chess.

This is a great and necessary document in support of a two-state solution. Even those who don't believe in such a solution may find their minds changed by The Gatekeepers.

Dense like a detailed graphic novel in the Chris Ware or R. Crumb vein, but a real movie in every way, Consuming Spirits is a strange and wormy accomplishment, the sort of personal epic only the most obsessive of cinematic madmen undertake, let alone complete.

No succeeds, wonderfully, because it knows how to sell itself. It is cool, witty, technically dazzling in a low-key and convincing way.

Your kids may will fall in love with it, if you help them find it.

The film version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” came out in the year in which An Education is set, and beyond the hairstyles, there’s something of the willful, gleeful Golightly reinvention expert about Jenny.

Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful.

Haneke’s vision is gripping. The craftsmanship, classically shaped narrative and icy visual beauty cannot be denied.

A remarkable downer-upper paradox: a bruising tale of teenage resilience, honest and emotionally complicated and alive.

This is an exceptional film about nearly unendurable circumstances, endured. You will come out the other side of it a markedly enriched filmgoer.

A true feat of daring and one of the craziest films of the year.

The movie putters near the end, but it's a film lover's delight.

The Messenger is not itself grueling, which is practically a miracle. Rather, this pungent little chamber piece offers a full yet delicate range of emotions, and it humanizes its characters so that polemics are left in the background.

Warts, entrails and all, I had a ball at Zombieland. It’s 81 minutes of my kind of stupid.

More than any previous screen role, this one affords Damon a chance to work his sly comic chops.

The film is gripping---an honorable and beautifully acted addition to the tradition of homefront war stories.

I’m inclined to agree with a colleague who told me he could swing with Antichrist when it was simply unstable but couldn’t go with it when it turned insane.

While director Armando Iannucci's brand of satire -- just plausible enough to be painful -- isn't for all tastes, it's a little bit of heaven to hear screen characters spew such eloquently vicious bile.

A real charmer, Me and Orson Welles is the work of a director who takes nostalgia, romantic possibility and the theater seriously, without being a pill about it.

As pure craftsmanship, No Country for Old Men is as good as we’ve ever gotten from Joel and Ethan Coen. Only “Fargo” is more satisfying (it’s also a comedy, which this one isn’t).

Raimi knows how to modulate his technique, as with the coolly controlled morality tale "A Simple Plan," but he's a firm believer in the power of an active, expressive camera, as well as the value of insinuation.

The acting's so true, and Bahrani's so observant, you find yourself caring about everyone onscreen.

It pulls audiences into a meticulously detailed universe, familiar in many respects, wacked and menacing in many others.

The funniest American comedy of the summer.